Growth
by okmeamithinknow
Summary: Inuyasha and Miroku return from an exorcism to find something terrible has happened.


"You're an idiot," he says, but there's no bite to his tone, nothing but concerned censure laced through the harsh words. It's foreign and stilted to his ears, and he's fighting against every instinct that's raging through him right now, but he's not looking to start a fight. Not tonight. Not after what he'd come home to.

He brushes back black bangs to uncover a gash across her temple. In the light of the full moon, it looks better than it did when he first found her.

"I know," she replies through a wince, as he presses a damp cloth against the wound. The wound bleeds sluggishly, leaving a crimson trail down the side of her face.

"I'm sorry," she says in a near whisper that's faint enough that even with his keen hearing he wonders if he's imagining the words. He's definitely not imagining the scent of salt that permeates the clearing however.

She hisses when he applies the healing salve she brought down to the riverbank to the cut. Tender fingers press a bandage to the injury.

"Kagome," he says, tilting her chin up to meet his eyes. Tears sparkle on her lashes and trickle down her cheeks. He raises a cautious hand and brushes away the newest one as it falls, wiping a streak of soot along with it. "Sango was right there, and Miroku and I saw the flames from the road."

He expects her to fight with him, to insist that she'd been right to run back into the burning hut to grab one of Miroku and Sango's twins, who slept through the entire ordeal. To tell him that she'd needed to be the one to do it in case the worst happened. That her friend's children couldn't grow up without a mother. That she took one look at Sango, one twin stuck to her leg, and the other clinging to his mother's neck and knew she wouldn't be able to pry the children off of her.

He hadn't been expecting to be met with tears and quiet acceptance.

"I know," she says again, sucking in a trembling breath. "I have more than myself to think of." Kagome presses a hand to her sleeping yukata right over the prominent swell of her stomach. Her free hand wipes away another tear that's trickled down her cheek. Her lip quivers and Inuyasha pulls her into his lap.

"Kagome," he says, and then sighs. "I can't believe I'm even going to say this, but you did the right thing."

 _With the men out on an exorcism to earn some extra money, Kagome stayed with Sango, helping her friend with her three children. Inuyasha rested easier on nights away from the village knowing that if trouble arose, Sango was never more than a room away from his heavily pregnant wife. The last few months, he'd been increasingly overprotective, and Kagome expected it to get worse as the birth of their first child loomed ever closer._

 _No one counted on an errant spark from the usually well-banked cooking fire to latch onto the laundry the girls brought in that evening. The men spent the last day and a half hurrying back to the village after a successful exorcism, eager to get back to their wives and children, the sight of the home Miroku and Inuyasha built for the ex-monk and his family engulfed in flames sent them running._

 _The southern exterior wall collapsed, bringing the rest of the building down with it, seconds after Kagome emerged from the hut, squalling child in her arms. A falling beam hit at just the right angle, catching her right on the temple and for one breath-stealing moment she tumbled towards the ground. A pair of familiar steady arms caught her before her head could hit the hardened earth below. Inuyasha swept the two of them up into his arms and ferried them to where Miroku stood comforting his wife and children. After delivering the girl to her parents and leaving Kagome in their care, he'd run off to help the other able-bodied men extinguish the fire. Fire safely out, Inuyasha stopped briefly to find Kagome offering up their spare room to their now displaced friends._

 _"_ _Just until we've rebuilt," Miroku assured him, though Inuyasha had been about to make the same offer. The young family could stay in the extra room Inuyasha built for Shippo, when he built the hut._

 _With a parting nod to the ex-monk, Inuyasha scooped up his injured wife and absconded to the river._

The adrenaline and exhaustion and the hormones catch up to Kagome all at once and she latches onto Inuyasha, clutching onto the front of his shirt. He crushes her to him, holding her close until she stops crying. Murmuring soft nonsense to distract her, he brushes his claws through her hair and rubs her back. She leans into Inuyasha's shoulder and a gasping shudder runs through her. Kagome wipes the final tears from her cheeks and heaves a sigh.

"Why aren't you more angry?" she asks, pulling back to meet his gaze. He quirks an eyebrow at her and she gives him a halfhearted smile that eases the ache that always accompanies her tears.

"What are you talking about? I'm plenty angry," he says, though his tone says differently, as he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Uh-huh," she says, voice incredulous.

"You've gone though enough shit tonight," he says with a shrug that she might believe, if she didn't know her husband better. "Besides don't your books say that too much stress is bad for the pup?"

"Uh-huh," Kagome says with a slight smirk. "So Kaede didn't lecture you when you picked up the herbs you used on my head from her hut?"

He flushes, just a light dusting across his cheeks and sputters a lukewarm rebuttal, but they both know it's a lie. Kagome's smile turns into a full-blown smirk, one that could rival her husband's. The unspoken _'wench'_ makes a giggle bubble up and it slips from her lips at his chagrinned face. Inuyasha scowls and wags a finger in her face.

"Let me guess," she says, pausing to giggle at him again. She snuggles closer to him, and his arms unconsciously pull her in tighter. "You'll yell at me tomorrow?"


End file.
